Ex-Symbian man wins 3GSM award

IT SEEMS that Brits win a disproportionate amount of awards at the 3GSM show. This year ex-Symbian man and Brit, Mark Edwards, staved off the competition to take home a gong for mFormation.

The actual award he received was for Best Service Delivery Platform. But that's not the point. It clearly illustrates an industry trend here at the 3GSM show in Barcelona.

That's because mFormation's skills lie in the area of remote handset management. The company likes to describe itself as the mobile industry's device doctors.

And operators are getting into remote device management big time.

When the INQ ran into Mark, he was so proud he accidentally let slip that one of mFormation's Tier one customers is Spain's Telefonica. (So O2 is probably right behind them in rolling this out, too).

For Telefonica, the net effect of installing and using MFormation's software was the discovery that 2 million of its existing users hadn't got MMS/Picture messaging correctly implemented on their phones.

The software cured that and Telefonica found that subsequently around 50 per cent - or one million users - sent at least one MMS message as a result.

Talking of results, the normal outcome of winning a 3GSM gong is for the company to be swallowed by an industry giant.

Luckily mFormation is private so its backers can take their time before accepting loads of wonga for the company.

The INQ's advice is talk to some previous winners before making any rash decisions. You've been warned. µ